The day I learnt the meaning of cold
by Reverand-Manson
Summary: What about a walk in Raccoon ruins six month later? Rated PG13 because... well it's Resident Evil after all...


The day I learnt the meaning of cold - by Reverand_Manson  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own anything that I don't own, I own just what I own, is that clear?!? Since English is not my primary language, please excuse me for the mistkes that may occur in my text. However I'll try to make as few as possible.  
  
I was happy. Before a mission I was always excited. I was the first one ready. As I walked toward the helicopter, I stared at my reflect on the mirrior on the wall. God I was looking great with that pair of sunglasses!  
  
I was sitting in the helicopter and looking at my friends. We were a special unit formed in last september, during the Raccoon incident. It's amazing how five men who absolutly don't know eachother can become such close friends in only six month. I must say that we've had plenty of missions together since the marines corpse formed our special unit. Most of them were to help survivors in the area. We had to take them back with us to the safe place around the Raccoon area.  
  
But this time it was different. This time we were going into the Raccoon ruins. Six month after the nuke incident, we had to go inside to look for special informations. We would be wearing special suits against the radiations. Although we weren't expecting to find anybody alive, we had to take all our equipement with us, including the weapons. " Just in case . " they said. One of my fellow partners said in joke : " Just in case we find someone transformed in monster by the radiations! " I found it not very amusing, considering all the deads that happened that day back in september.  
  
" Red " my captain said, waking me up from my thoughts, " we're landing in three minutes. Make sure everyone is wearing his suit properly. "  
  
" Yes sir! " I answered, and got to the others to accomplish my mission. After that, I walked to the door and watched the ruins we were approaching. It was a sad spectacle. Everything was grey and dark. It was midday but it seemed to be five p.m. There was snow everywhere. Most of it was dark or grey. We had to hurry, because of the cold. Our suits protected us against the radiations, not against the weather. Our uniform protected us against the cold, but not for a very long time. It was not a very cold place before, but since the accident, Raccoon had become a micro-climate of nuclear winter. The reason why we had to do our mission at midday was that the temperature during the day was around -15ºc, and about -30ºc at night. We weren't equipped for a long mission in the cold, because it was a two hours mission. All we had to do was run from the landing point to the ruins of the nuclear facility, make our way to the underground with explosives if needed, take the balck box of the plant and run back to the pickup point.  
  
I never came to Raccoon city before, and neither did any of my comrades. They probably didn't want any of us peronaly involved for these missions. I admit it would have been difficult for me to fully concentrate on a mission in my hometown if such a tragedy had happened there.  
  
When the helicopter was over the landing point, captain Henry Walker threw the cables through the door and each one of us attached himself to one cable. One after another we jumped out of the helicopter and slid along the cable until we hit the ground. The ruins were even more worrying now. It wasn't anymore the grey and black blocks covered by dust that I saw from the helicopter earlier. Now they were stones and rests of the houses where people had once lived. Dead people. This was a cemetery. Somehow the recomforting grip at my AK47 didn't seem so futile anymore. But soon we were moving again, running after the captain who didn't want to let us -or himself- too much time to think.  
  
« Alpha in position » the commander shouted with crackles in the headphone in my ear. « Captain Walker, don't forget to bring your men at the rendez- vous point at 1400. We'll be waiting for you there for about fifteen minutes. After that, the radiation will start to alter our vehicule shield and we'll have to leave. With you or without you. » Although that was the usual commander's way of wishing us « good luck », I never found it very reassuring.  
  
We were running in the ruined streets of Raccoon City. There were fragments of asphalt here and there, but the ground was mostly irradiated soil. As we turned a corner, I thought i saw a shadow, moving behind a stone pile. I blinked and it had disappeard. And yet I wasn't tired : I'd just had a good night sleep. I went on running, on my guards. And we reached the facility. Now all we had to do was to go underground.  
  
« Red, Jim and Steve, secure the area while Ken and I try to find a way inside. » The captain yelled, with a preoccupied look on his face. Secure the area? Against what? Had he seen the shadow that i thought I saw? Nah! This was just regular precaution. But against what? We weren't in ennemy territory. Was the captain expecting a sudden radiation attack? Relucantly I smiled. But not for long.  
  
All of a sudden, the usefulness of the fireweapon I was holding in my hands took all its sense. The attack came from everywhere. In a second I had the time to see Jim's head fly off his body and Ken, screaming all the tears of hell as claws pierced his chest. I saw blood in the eyes of my friend. I saw him spit his own blood, unable to keep it inside, as life was leaving him. I saw the creature behind him taking its claws out of the lifeless corpse that not so long ago was my teammate. I finally saw the body fall down on dust, spilling its blood on the soiled snow. And the clawed creature had moved out of my field of vision and I heard the shots.  
  
When I came back to me I threw myself on the ground and took my gun. All I could see was the black shadow moving very fast. I didn't seem to be interested in me, for the moment, but more concerned about escaping the bullets of Steve and captain Walker who were shooting at it. Before I could even aim the creature was lying on the floor, just like my other friends, dead. Or so it seemed. But as I ran to it to see what it was, I saw it move. I aimed to the head and shot. This time it was really dead. Steve and the captain joined me. We were still under the shock of what just happened. Our friends were dead. We never expected that to happen. Since the day we joined the army, we knew it was to help people, to save them. Not to be killed. We wouldn't be sent to war. Even if trained for combat, we had been engaged for rescue ops. I droped my AK and fell on my knees, almost crying. But then I felt a strong grip on my elbow.  
  
" Get up, soldier! And take back that weapon! " It was captain Henry Walker. " If we're to make it out of it alive you have to be aware. There may be other creatures like this one. Probably mutated by the radiations. Now let's go. The mission's not over yet. " Mutated by radiations! Was he kidding me? I just wanted to say fuck to the mission, but he was right. I was a soldier. And we had to make it out of it alive. At least for Jim and Ken. And somehow I felt that going on with the mission was the only way to learn more about what was going on here.  
  
I heard a detonation. " It's open! " Steve said, and I looked at him. He noticed my incredible stare and walked to me. I was a little bit reasured by the sad look on his face. " I know what you think " he said, " but I'm not a monster. They were my friends too, but we'll have plenty of time to cry for them once we're outof here. If we survive. And I wanna know what happenned to them. "  
  
The captain looked at me. " We ask the same questions that you do, Red, but there is no time to waste. " The special suits we were wearing tended to make the situation even worse. As I needed to see friends, there were only familiar faces behind glass, surrounded by a black suit.  
  
I looked back at them. Allright. No time. Let's go. We ran toward the ruins of the facility, which were only a black crater of sonsumed material with a hole in the middle, just formed by the explosion I heard. We were going underground. And irronically I rememberd a movie in which someone said : " You're all going to die down here! "  
  
Of course there was no ladder going down. Captain Walker drove a stake in the ground and attached a cable to it. We all slid down it one after another, into the darkness only illuminated by our headlights. We then reached the bottom. Apparently we were in an underground tunnel, spared by the nuclear explosion that only happened on the surface, as we had been explained during the briefing. The captain showed us the direction we had to go and we all lit the lamps of our guns. Advancing in silence we could hear the echo of our steps. Even if not completely destructed by the explosion, the tunnel we were in was supporting too much weight and some collapses had happened here and there and could still happen. We had to go on carefully.  
  
Suddenly I heard a noise behind us. Some loud steps comming in very fast. We dove behind some fallen concrete to hide and see what was arriving. There were three other creatures like the one we had killed above, and which had killed our friends. Those black shit with claws and a reptile skin. Without waiting for the captain's order I aimed at the first one and opened fire. It all happened very fast. The creatures didn't get down as easily as I first thought. My shots only seemed to slow them down. The first one wasn't dead and the other were already running towards us. My comrades were shooting too and the monsters started to slow down. But they were still advancing. As they were only a few steps away, they all fell down, one by one. Then I heard clicks. Our magazines were empty. The whole scene had seemed like hours, as the monsters were approaching and not falling. But now I realised that it must had been only a few seconds. A little bit less than seventy seconds. The exact time needed to empty a full clip in permanent fire.  
  
" What the hell are those things! " Steve shouted. It wasn't a question because there could be no reasonable answer. The captain didn't speak. He stared at the dead creatures and approached them. After he kicked each one of them to be sure they were dead he loaded his gun and cocked it. We did the same and followed him as he was walking again in the underground tunnel. He looked quite more self-confident than I felt right now. Which reminded me of my own self-confidence before the mission. It was a little reassuring to think about something else. To think that there was something else than this place. And suddenly I realised that we already killed four of these creatures and that there might be many more. And that we had to go on with the mission to find out what they were. It was obvious now that the ones who sent us on this mission were aware of what we were going to meet. Otherweise they wouldn't have insist so much on us taking our weapons. Could we have met them during the other missions? The rescue missions? Maybe. Now all that counted was to go to the heart of this nuclear facility - if it really was onw - and find the informations we were looking for.  
  
After a long walk and a lot of turns we finally came to a big room. It was several floors high. The room was round and there were platforms around it. Ladders linked each level. There was a big hole in the middle that showed how deep the room was. I never went in a nuclear plant before, but I was sure there wrere no such things in there. It was something diffrent. Somehow I was now sure that we would find answers for the death of our friends.  
  
" Let's go " the captain said. And he started to walk down the nearest ladder. Steve was still leaning on the metal barrier of the platform. Something suddenly grabbed him and he disappeared into the darkness of the hole. I ran to the barrier and searched the darkness with my weak headlight but found nothing. I could only hear the noise of something very big going down very fast. It hit the ground and then nothing. My captain was on the level under me, looking down too. Then we heard the thing comming back and we ran back to the wall.  
  
" Close your light! " the captain screamed. " And shut up! If we make less noise than it. We may get it before it gets us! " Allright, I thought. Night vision. He didn't have to tell it. And he couldn't either. The creature was back at our level, searching for us. I was slowly walking around the room to get a clear view. We'd better hurry to kill it because the batteries wouldn't hold forever and the night vision goggles took more power than the headlights. In silence I approached the barrier and looked. The monster was as large as the room. It was mostly a combination of pink and red tentacles. There were about ten of them, two to three meters of diameter. They joined in one point which seemed to be the head with its little black balls, like many eyes looking everywhere and seeing nothing. The creature was just hanging above the empty, its tentacles against the walls. One of the tentacles was scanning the level where my captain was. He seemed to have problem with his night vision and wouldn't want to make any noise, barely breathing.  
  
As silently as possible I aimed at one of the creature's eyes. There was no time to switch to one-burst position or the creature would find the captain. I fired as many times as I could before the creature could spot the source of the bullets that were piercing its eyes. Now I got what I was looking for. The creature abandonned the captain, letting him the time to turn on his night vision, and was looking for me. I started to move slowly to the left, skimming the wall. But the monster took no time evaluate my position. It just launched two of its tentacles in my direction with anger. I rolled on the ground, just in time to escape the first tentacle that smashed in the wall, shattering the concrete out of it. The other one nearly hit me, tearing the metal plateform. I fell to the level underneath, at the opposite side of the position of my captain. I started to move slowly toward him, going around the roome as the creature was still destroying the upper level with amazing power.  
  
I readied my weapon for another shot but I saw the captain making signs to me not to do so. He was right. All my AK could do was make the creature angry. We would never have the time to take it down before it destroyed our positions. In a hurry, we started to go down, using the ladders, before the monster started to realise that we weren't even up there anymore. Its tentacles had started to search the plaforms again, so we couldn't make too much noise. As I looked over my shoulder, I saw that we were about ten levels from the ground.  
  
All around the room, at every level, were computers and what looked like chemical machinery, but no doors. We really had to go down. I looked up to see what the creature was doing. It had started to searched the other levels, but with haste and what seemed to be a little irritation. It would soon go faster.  
  
As I thought that, the creature let itself fall with all its tentacles deployed, destroying the platforms as it fell. Without a glince at my captain I started to slide along the ladder, hoping gloves of my suit were strong enough to support the friction. At the second level before the ground I started to break, tightening the ladder with my hands and feet as hard as possible. When I was too close to the ground I jumped off the ladder and rolled. Just in time to see the creature crash next to me. I couldn't move anymore. It would make too much noise, my rib was broken and the fear wouldn't let me anyway.  
  
I heard a scream on the other side of the creature, but it didn't seem to notice. Maybe was it. dead? No. It wouldn't have just killed itself for the frustration of not finding us.  
  
" Are you alright? " Who said that? It wasn't my captain's voice. Or maybe was it? I wasn't so sure. " Are you alright? " the unknown voice repeted. It was comming frome above. Very high. Was it from the top of the room? I couldn't tell. My rib hurt so much!  
  
" No, we're not! " I heard myself scream. Then nothing. After a few minutes I heard someone going down the still intact ladders. Minutes? How could we have gone down all this way so fast and still be alive? If not for the pain I wouldn't be sure it it was real. The person who came down came near me. She was wearing a black suit, just like me.  
  
" What's wrong? " a female voice asked.  
  
" My rib, I answered, it's broken. "  
  
She knelt next to me and touched my rib. I screamed out in owfull pain. " You're right, she said, it's broken. "  
  
She walked around the still creature and went to my captain. " What about you? " she said.  
  
With relief I heard the captain speak. " I only hurt my head. But I'm allright. "  
  
" Then why don't you stand up? "  
  
" Oh, shut up ! "  
  
O.K.! He must have been hurt more than he wanted to admit. " Common, you sexist freak! " the woman said. " Let me help you. "  
  
I heard him shout in pain. " It's your leg. It's broken. Well, that thing won't take time to wake up, so I suggest we find a way to put you and your friend up before we talk about what the hell you're doing here. "  
  
The captain agreed and after a few trys he was up, walking with a metal bar as a crutch. They went back to me and helped me get up. The woman was supporting me on my broken rib side.  
  
We left the room by the only door at this level and were walking along a corridor.  
  
" So, who are you and what are you doing here ? " our savior asked.  
  
" I am captain Henry Walker and this is private Red Goon. We're on a top secret mission. But who are you and what are you doing here? "  
  
As an answer she just laughed and said : " You'll descover soon enough. "  
  
We walked in silence the rest of the way down the corridor and entered a surveillance room.  
  
" This is where I saw you were in trouble, she said, pointing the screens. Now tell me why the army would send a kid and his captain in Umbrella's research faility? "  
  
I raised an eyebrow and, only half-surprised, asked : " Research facility? " Ironnically I turned to my captain : " So this isn't a nuclear plant after all. "  
  
He didn't answer and got to a corner of the room, leaving me and the woman discussing about that thing that attacked us.  
  
" So what was it? Do you have an idea? " I asked.  
  
" Basically it's a mutated organism, she answered. But from what exactly I couldn't tell. All I know is that they call it Tyrant. (she was searching in a notepad). -008. "  
  
" They? "  
  
" Umbrella of course. " The intrigued look on her face was asking me if I was kidding her. I was thinking the same.  
  
" But Umbrella is a well-known pharmaceutical company. It was implanted in Raccoon City in the middle of the century and gave jobs to everyone. It. It. "  
  
" Controls the city " she finished.  
  
I just remembered a sign I had seen in the first tunnel we went in. Covered with dust it actually seemed a lot like the Umbrella corp. logo. The woman in black took out some files from a bag on a table. She showed me some photographs of the experiments that Umbrella was leading in this underground facility.  
  
" By the was, she said, you mensionned a nuclear facility? There has never been such a plant in Raccoon city. "  
  
It was like a punch in the stomach. It was just a cover. Now I understood why they took only people who had no link with the city.  
  
" So where went the explosion from? " I asked.  
  
" They launched a nuclear bomb on this place. This facility, at least the top of it, was the impact point. It was meant to let the underground facility intact and just destroy the surface. This is why the monsters you saw were only inside. And that nobody ever seen them outisde. "  
  
" Umbrella has the nuke? "  
  
" No. Probably not. The government must have done it. "  
  
" Umbrella and the government did the whole shit? "  
  
" Don't know. I'm here to find out. Probably like you. Or are you here to destroy the evidence? "  
  
" Frankly I don't know. We were initally sent on a mission to recover vital info from the nuclear plant. which turns out to be an Umbrella research facility. I really don't know what my supperiors would have done with it. Captain what do you. " He was gone. Totally absorbed in the conversation we didn't even hear him leave.  
  
" There! The woman said, pointing a surveillance screen. He's heading for the labs. "  
  
What the heck was he thinking! Maybe we could reach him if we left now. He wasn't fast with his broken leg, but with my broken rib I wasn't either. Before I could speak the woman was taking my gun and heading for the door my captain probably used to get out, telling me not to worry, that she would bring him back. She pointed the microphone on the console.  
  
" Just tell me if anything comes in my direction. " She was gone.  
  
It took me at least a minute to figure out the plan of the underground facility and which camera showed what place. I was seeing the captain advancing slowly toward the labs, and the woman in the black suit searching for him. I suddenly had an idea. I turned on the microphone before me and spoke : " Captain do you read me? " He turned around looking everywhere. " Stop right now please. The woman is coming after you to take you back to safety. You can't do it alone. We have to be evacuated. We have enough info on what happened here, whith the woman's files. "  
  
He only continued, trying to go faster. But why? On camera 4 I saw a corridor in which captain Henry Walker had just engaged. Behind him came the woman. He turned around and shot! Oh my God what was he thinking! She jumped on the side, but there was nowhere to hide. She had no field experience, it appeared, and could do nothing against a trained soldier, even if he had a broken leg. Before I could speak in the mic again, both of them fired. After a short pause, the captain left, and the woman in black was still lying, not moving. I guessed she wouldn't move anymore. Without waiting anymore, I got up and walked after him, as fast as possible with my broken bone. I had had time to memorize the map to the labs. I would find him there and demand an explaination.  
  
In the corridor I found the girl's body, her suit pierced and spots of blood on it. I only took my weapon and went on. A couple of meters away, I saw a black thing on the floor. I ran to it only to see that it was the captain's suit. I wondered why he had taken it away. Then I spotted a hole in the suit's leg. Pierced, it wasn't usefull anymore. He would die from the radiations anyway, now.  
  
After a painfull walk, I arrived at the lab's door. There was no wondow to see inside. Walker could be anywhere inside it. Even next to the door, waiting for me. I had no choice. I opened the door and walked in, raising my weapon.  
  
What I saw was beyond all the horror that I had seen until now. It was a large room with plenty of tubes containing those creatures that we had fought earlier. Only they were not black, but green.  
  
" They went black because of the radiations " the voice of Henry Walker said, somewhere in the room. " They are sick. These ones are in full health. Just waiting for me to unleash them. " As he was talking, I was slowly advancing between the tubes, trying not to make too much noise, which was difficult because of the pain in my right side. Where the hell was he? I had to gain some time.  
  
" You seem to know a lot about these things, Henry. "  
  
" Ha! Ha! Ha! Hunters. These are Hunters. A bioweapon of Umbrella. Mutated with the T-virus. "  
  
" We didn't come here to gather info, did we, Henry? "  
  
" I am still your captain. No we didn't come for that. We came to destruct info. "  
  
" Why? " At his laughs I precised my question. " Why now? The incident occured six month ago. Why wait all this time and risk anybody, like the woman you shot, to find out what was going on here? "  
  
" This is a simple question to answer. This facility is the point of impact. The radiations were too strong until now, even with the suits. "  
  
" Talking about that, I saw you left yours. It was damaged. If we get out now, we can still save you by decontamination. "  
  
" No, it's too late for me. And as a matter of fact, for you too. "  
  
" What do you mean? The suit protects me! " I started to feel a little worry.  
  
" Against the radiations, not against these creatures. "  
  
As he said that, I walked pas a tube and saw him. He was near a console with several buttons and screens. He was holding a remote control. Before he could do anything stupid I shot him in the chest and he fell down. Then I walked toward him. He was down, the remote control still in his hand. His eyes seemed to mean sorry. He droped the remote control and said something I couldn't hear. I approached my ear from his mouth and heard : " Now you die. " And he pushed a button on the remote control.  
  
With fear I went up in a hurry. I was hoping that bastard didn't. Yes he did. The tubes started to empty from their liquids. And I saw red lights turning to green on the base of the tubes, and I didn't like it. I remembered an elevator I saw in the surveillance room. Had to go back. Fast.  
  
Forgetting the awfull pain in my broken rib, I limped toward the exit, hearing beeps of the tubes getting ready to unleash the creatures. I finally got to the door and closed it behind me, hoping it would hold them back for a moment. As I was at the middle of the corridor, I heard a glass break. And others. They were unleahed. That made me hurry. Maybe they didn't even know how to open doors. The answer came when I passed the corner of the corridor. I heard the door far behind me. I had to do something. The only question was what? I couldn't run, they were too fast. They were too many for me to kill them by gunfire. And there was nowhere to hide. The situation was hopelss. At that moment I passed the door at the end of the corridor to enter the other one, where the corpse of the woman was. And I had an idea. It wasn't brillant. It had not a lot of chances to work. And it was respectless for the mortal remains of the woman that saved my life because I had no choice but to leave her here. But it was my only chance. I put my grenaed in the middle of the corridor and activated them as the door flew open. I ran to the door of the surveillance room. As the first creatures running after me passed next to the corpse, the grenades exploded and threw them flying against concrete. The confusion in enemy liness gave me time to call the elevator. Just as the door of the elevetor closed, I saw the door of the surveillance room shatter and the creatures pouring in. But I was gone, and alive. And without the files.  
  
Shit! I couldn't have done that! The woman that saved me had gathered all the information needed to incriminate the people responsible for that nightmare. and I had forgotten it in the rush. I couldn't go back. I was alive, but with nothing. All I had was my memories. I promissed myself that once out of this I would fight against Umbrella untill truth was uncoverd. I owed it to the woman in the black suit, of whom I never knew the name.  
  
Once at the rendez-vous point, I saw the hellicopter leaving. I had arrived too late. And I had no equipment with me anymore. No fuses to launch to reveal my presence. Only my riffle. They wouldn't come back for me. I had to go on foot. I was tired and injured. I was hungry and freezing. Back on the surface, there was no more underground facility to protect me from the chilling cold. Plus the night was approaching. I had to walk.  
  
After a time that I couldn't count, I saw a human figure. I was at the outer limits of the city. As the human form was approaching, I saw it was limping. The night had fell and I couldn't see very well, only with the weak light of the moon, with my batteries down.  
  
I heard a moan, and the figure started to walk agressivly in my direction.  
  
" What are you doing? " I asked. But the person in front of me tried to grab me so I put her down with a blow of the back of my weapon. Then I saw it well under the moonlight. I saw its decayed flesh, I saw its lifeless eyes. Radiations? No. Radiations only affected the body. A human would be dead at that point of decay. It had to be something with the T-virus. Maybe a link with the strange disease that some people talked about, just before the accident? Maybe. But as the monster tryed to grab my foot and I shot its head. with my boot. And the pain reminded me my broken rib. I couldn't breath for a moment. I thought I would die. And air broke through my lungs again.  
  
It was growing even colder as the time passed. But I had to walk. I couldn't stop. After a very long time, I saw the sun rise behind the horizon, and a military base appeared. I walked a little longer and collapsed. I just had the time to see men running toward me.  
  
When I woke up I was in a decontaminated room, on a hospital bed. There were scientists around me. One of them noticed that I had waken up and told the others.  
  
" Can you talk? " he asked me.  
  
" Yes, I managed to say. Where am I ? "  
  
" Back at your base, soldier. Your suit was pierced but we had time to decontaminate you. Your feet were frozen and we could only save one of them. The other one had to be amputated. You must have gone through hell. "  
  
" Indeed. " And I closed my eyes. There was plenty of time now to tell someone about what I lived. For the moment, I just wanted to sleep. The scientist went away to let me rest. I felt good now. I just wanted to forget the horrors I went through and rest a little. I breathed deeply and fell asleep in no time. 


End file.
